HOWTO Boot from any .iso file without needing a working CD-ROM - REALLY USEFUL!

[franestepona]

Hi!

I have installed Gujin in myu hard drive. I downloaded the latest Hardy cd and mounted it, then I copied everything inside it to another partition. When i boot from Gujin it doesnt recognise the Hardy cd. Do I really need to overwrite the whole partition with cat? Is there any method that doesnt overwrite the partition?

[john_spiral]

... I downloaded the latest Hardy cd and mounted it, then I copied everything inside it to another partition. ...

No need to mount the CD image,

Just use the cat command to copy the .iso file directly to the partition,

Gujin should be able to boot from the partition now.

Unfortunately will will need to set aside a partition for the .iso file.

[Yes]

I finally got the file downloaded ok, and put boot.144 on it with dd (when I used cat cmp came up with an error).

I can't figure out what to do when I boot, though. I have an iso on /dev/hda2. How do I boot from it?

[john_spiral]

I finally got the file downloaded ok, and put boot.144 on it with dd (when I used cat cmp came up with an error).

I can't figure out what to do when I boot, though. I have an iso on /dev/hda2. How do I boot from it?

Hi Yes,

does your Gujin floppy boot?

If not use the below command to copy the .bin file to the floppy.

cat boot.144 > /dev/fd0

If your Gujin floppy is booting then you should see an option for the .iso file on "/dev/hda2".

If you are still struggling then re-read the howto and make sure you follow all steps in sequence.

come back to us.

John

[Yes]

Ok, I got it now.

FYI, cat boot.144 > /dev/fd0 didn't work. I had to put it on with dd if=boot.144 of=/dev/fd0

[franestepona]

Seems that I cant get the cat to work.

[03:39:02]Fran@FransMachine: sudo fdisk -l
[sudo] password for fran:

Disk /dev/sda: 80.0 GB, 80023752704 bytes
255 heads, 63 sectors/track, 9729 cylinders
Units = cylinders of 16065 * 512 = 8225280 bytes
Disk identifier: 0xf30cf30c

   Device Boot      Start         End      Blocks   Id  System
/dev/sda1   *           1        1415    11365956    5  Extended
/dev/sda2            1416        8685    58396275   83  Linux
/dev/sda3            8686        9729     8385930   83  Linux
/dev/sda5            1306        1415      883543+  82  Linux swap / Solaris
/dev/sda6               1        1305    10482318   83  Linux

Partition table entries are not in disk order

Disk /dev/sdb: 250.0 GB, 250059350016 bytes
255 heads, 63 sectors/track, 30401 cylinders
Units = cylinders of 16065 * 512 = 8225280 bytes
Disk identifier: 0x12345678

   Device Boot      Start         End      Blocks   Id  System
/dev/sdb1   *           1       30401   244196001    7  HPFS/NTFS
[03:39:23]Fran@FransMachine: sudo cat /home/fran/Desktop/ubuntu-8.04-beta-desktop-i386.iso  > /dev/sda3
bash: /dev/sda3: Permission denied

I tried with the partition mounted, umounted, reformatted, etc... none worked. What am I doing wrong?

[john_spiral]

[03:39:23]

Fran@FransMachine: sudo cat /home/fran/Desktop/ubuntu-8.04-beta-desktop-i386.iso  > /dev/sda3
bash: /dev/sda3: Permission denied

Hi Fran,

It looks like fran is not in the sudoers list. i.e doesn't have permission to use the sudo command?

Can you use the sudo su command to become root?

[john_spiral]

Ok, I got it now.

FYI, cat boot.144 > /dev/fd0 didn't work. I had to put it on with dd if=boot.144 of=/dev/fd0

I'm gald you got it working

strange how the cat boot.144 > /dev/fd0 didn't work on your machine (it's a command from the Gujin install.txt).

what size is your floppy, 1.44 megs?

[franestepona]

Hi again!
After rebooting I could copy the iso image with the cat command, booted from the iso and everything went good. I encountered a problem though, when I try to install the system it complains about a cd or hardisk failure at 78% of the process. I'm currently downloading the cd iso file again to redo the process, could it be the checksum of the file?

Thanks!

EDIT: I downloaded the cd again and redo the cat, now it's working!

[Giving it a Try]

I have my iso file on /dev/hda3 which a Linux bootable partition.

I have working copy of Gujin on a floppy and can boot to it.

the problem is that the analysis says not bootable disk of partition found.

What gives?